Greg combines his passions for nature, travel and photography to create wildlife images from around the world.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Wildlife Viewing Etiquettes...

Wildlife Viewing Etiquittes:

1.Do not
approach or feed wildlife! I am always amazed at how often people try to
feed wild animals. There are no “tame” animals in national parks and just
because they don’t always run away from you when you approach them it doesn’t
mean they are tame. A mule deer doe that has a fawn nearby won’t stray too far
from that area. If you have a tasty treat for her she may even let you feed
her. Then again, when you get close if the baby is close by you may be
attacked, so it is just better to admire the wildlife from a respectful
distance. In Waterton, the deer are pretty habituated to people. People feed
them, and try to pet them and then understandably the deer get upset especially
if they have a baby nearby. This inevitably results in people getting attacked
and seriously injured by the angry doe. The effect of this poor human behaviour
is the government has hired a lady to chase the deer out of town with a golf
cart and several herding dogs. Insult to injury this creates more stress for
the deer and makes them even grumpier! How would you like it if you were trying
to settle down to have a baby when some crazy person on a golf cart with
several dogs chased you around town? The bottom line? Keep your distance from
all wildlife and the government won’t have to hire crazy “deer ladies” and
everyone can enjoy the wildlife peacefully. On a bright note I did manage to get some cute images of the mule deer fawns from a distance.

2.Road Side Bears- When you see a bear on the side of the road and would like to take a
picture then realize that your point and shoot doesn’t have a very good zoom,
do not get out of your car. Bears can run 30 miles an hour for several miles.
You can’t. If you accidentally come between a momma bear and her cubs or even too close to her or her cubs while trying
to take their pictures, you may be her next lunch! Stay in your car when you are
closer than 100 yards away. This weekend we were phtographing a mother and two
yearling cubs when a guy dropped his wife off so he could reposition the car.
Very stupid! Even if the bear isn’t showing signs of agression, we all know
mothers are entitiled to change their minds and moods very quickly!

Bears cubs are cute, but please use some common
sense and photograph them from a distance. This picture
was taken with a super telephoto lens from at least the
length of a football field.

3.Don’t
block traffic! If you are on a narrow mountain road and you have a good wildlife
sighting and want to stay with the wildlife and take more pictures of them,
either find a pull out on the side of the road or drive ahead, turn around at
the nearest pull out and come back for seconds. If you hold up traffic, then
you can almost bet that the wardens are going to be there to arm their sirens
and scare the wildlife away so the traffic will start moving again. The
wildlife goes up into the mountains and we all lose our privlege of nice
roadside wildlife sightings.

4.Take only pictures, leave only footprints: Bread
left out goes moldy, the birds eat it and get sick, tasty chewing gum spit out
the window is tasty for animals as well. This can make a small animal sick or
may die from ingetsting the gum. No one wants to see garbage or cans and
bottles in nature. Have some respect for the wildlife and for other people and
give everyone a chance to enjoy nature and keep it garbage free.

5.Rutt Season- This event occurs in the
fall when ungulates are competing to breed. Testosterone levels are high and
fuses are short. If you are stupid enough to get out of your car to get a
picture of elk fighting and the nearest cow elk is behind you, the winner of
that competition will likely see you as his next obstacle standing between him and his prize and will likely go after you with the same vengance that he went after the other male
elk. Elk will even attack cars in the fall (I think they sometimes see their
reflection in the paint and attack). Big horn sheep chase after one another and
can easily run over you by accident. Even if they don’t do it on purpose,
getting run over by a 400 pound big horn sheep in mating season would be
similar to getting hit by a vehicle. The difference is you won’t have the right
of way and the sheep won’t care that you weren’t paying attention to where you
were going.

Well that’s it for this trip. With sightings of 12 different
bears, sheep, foxes, and deer I would say that this trip was one of the most
productive Waterton trips that we have been on.

We are seven weeks out until our Kenya/South Africa trip. I can't wait. We should have good internet connections while we're there though, so check back or sign up for my blog emails. I am a bit of a lazy blogger though. I blog daily on safari, but for the most part only blog while on safari so I don't send out many blogs throughout the year.

5. Animals in national parks are not pets!
I realize this sounds funny to a lot of people, but many people believe these animals are pets. In one national park in Canada a man tried to lift his bride on to the back of an elk so he could take a picture. She was later air lifted by helicopter to the U of A hospital after the elk almost gored her to death. In South Africa a family wanted their picture taken in front of a pride of lions. I believe the person with the camera lived, but the rest of the family were immediately killed and eaten. In Waterton National park where I was a couple weeks ago tourists asked the park rangers when the sheep were groomed because they looked "nasty". Yes the sheep look nasty when they are blowing out their winter coats and no, they aren't groomed or bathed. There is no big horn sheep groomer that grooms the sheep, then puts a pretty little bow on their bangs so they will look good for the tourists. I saw several tourists feeding the deer leaves and or grass. One tourist asked which ones are the pets and which ones are the wild ones. Apparently he wanted to know which ones he could pet. Yes, people really are that uneducated when it comes to wildlife. And if you are from a city of several million, have never seen a wild animal before then come to a national park that has bear, sheep, goat and deer in abundance I can understand how you don't understand wildlife etiquettes. At the end of the day, ignorance is no excuse. People who don't respect wildlife are injured and killed by animals on a daily basis and yet millions of people who follow some simple rules about wildlife are never ever harmed, so please respect them and they will respect you.